The Social Contract Theory Research Paper

The Social Contract Theory
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The Social Contract Theory
The notion of the social contract is traced back to Thomas Hobbes, but Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke developed it in different ways. It is worth mentioning that the social contract theory is basically understood as the viewpoint that morality is purely based on uniform social agreements which serve the best interest of the ones that make the agreements. This paper explores the social contract theory and examines the development of the concept of government by social contract in the writing of Rousseau, Locke, and Hobbes. This essay analyzes what Locke found wrong in Hobbes’s account, what Rousseau found objectionable in Locke’s theory and the problems that remain in Rousseau’s social contract. Whether or not the notion of government by social contract makes sense is explained, as well as the best social contract that could be achieved.
The term social contract is applied to the political theories of Jean Rousseau 1712-78 from France; John Locke 1632-1704 from England; as well as Thomas Hobbes also from England 1588-1679. The social contract theory is essentially the viewpoint that the political and/or moral duties of people depend on an agreement or contract amongst them to create the society wherein they live. The notion of social contract makes sense since social contracts for decades have been used to structure the way governments and citizens worked together. Societies are generally controlled by their governments. Citizens benefit from living together within kingdoms, nations, or under some other forms of governmental oversight. Nonetheless, to live in society necessitates the creation of regulations and rules. Societies all over the world resulted from compromises. Social contracts, in essence, offer the framework for how governments and citizens interact, thus the notion of social contracts makes sense.
Thomas Hobbes
In Leviathan, Hobbes maintained that the contract holds amongst the people, who agree to relinquish their earlier unlimited, free rights of the brutish state of nature and to follow the rule of an absolute supreme ruler and her/his government. The citizens agree to give away their independence – their right to autonomy – to a monarch. The people relinquish their independence as well as their rights and then become subjects. Hobbes’ concept of social contract goes along with the social contract or covenant between God, Abraham, and the people of Israel of the Old Testament. God chose his people, and the Israelites were looked upon by their representatives or governors, who were actually under God through a constitution or social contract. God did not intend for men to be ruled by other men. God warned the people of Israel of how a king would rule over them. All through the Old Testament, Israel as a nation was only blessed when the people as well as their leaders submitted to God’s authority according to his covenant. This Biblical social contract was successful when Israelites and their leaders recognized God’s authority.
According to Hobbes, the monarch is actually not party to the contract but there appears to be something which is of a contractual understanding. In case the monarch is not able to maintain security and social order, the citizens can rightfully dispense with the services of the monarch. Hobbes stated that the social contract comprises 2 components. First is an agreement of every member of the future civil body with each one of the other member to recognize as sovereign what an assembly of people a majority their number agrees on. Secondly is the vote that determines what or who is actually to be the sovereign. John Hobbes defines the state of nature as the state that people would be or are, in living collectively with no effective government over them. Here, the term effective government is used to imply something such as government offering its citizens sufficient security against any foreign or domestic attacks on their property or persons. The social contract, according to Hobbes, in binding only when security is realized. Obedience is, in essence, exchanged for protection. All through his lifetime, Thomas Hobbes held that the absolute monarch was the only right and proper type of government. This idea emanated from the central tenets of his natural philosophy that at their core, people are generally self-centered creatures. If people are put in a state of nature – with no government at all – then they would be in a state of continuous warfare with each other.
In his definition of the state, Hobbes is actually in agreement with Locke. In Hobbes state of nature, life is basically brief, brutish, spiteful, poor, and solitary. It is a state of war whereby every person is really against everybody – a war where culture, industry and real society do not exist. There are no notions of injustice and justice, or wrong and right. Every person will be susceptible to predation by those who are physically powerful, and property could not be amassed without being stolen. The sovereign’s first right is the right to exercise the police power or the right to punish. Hobbes maintained that governments are created primarily to protect one’s survival and all power is conceded to the ruler/Sovereign. Any rights possessed by the people, besides their lives, are bestowed at the Sovereign’s discretion. The sovereign, according to Hobbes, cannot justly be punished by her subjects in any way.
Due to Hobbes’s pessimistic perspective of human nature, he maintained that the only type of government that was really powerful enough to contain people’s innate nasty impulses was absolute monarch in which the ruler exercised unchecked and supreme power over the people. Even though he believed in the social contract theory, Hobbes assigned virtually the whole power to the monarch and never believed that citizens have the right to rebel.
John Locke
Locke viewed the matter in a somewhat different way. Within the state of nature, whatever a person’s vulnerabilities, wrong and right would already be in existence; stealing would already be stealing and murder already murder. The main problem with the state of nature according to Locke is that justice could not be put into effect or enforced properly, particularly since being a judge in a person’s own case would serve to increase a person’s sense of injury and then turn fair revenge into unfair retribution. The government’s purpose is therefore to enforce justice in a more effective way. The rights of people which already existed in nature are only recognized by the government, not created. The government will lose its legitimacy if it did not institute those rights.
Lockean state of nature is one in which people live together in accordance with reason, without a common superior with power to judge between them. Locke basically implies that people are in a state of nature whenever not any single person is allowed to settle arguments or conflicts between 2 individuals, and when there is no official umpire who will arbitrate between them. In essence, there is no common judge in the state of nature.  The state of nature, according to John Locke, is actually not brutish and is already operating in a robust variety of natural law principles which restrict the rights of citizens.
Although Locke’s state of nature is in fact a state of liberty or autonomy, it has a law of nature that governs it which obliges every person. Man’s natural liberty does not imply that people are not constrained by any laws. Man’s state of liberty means only having the law of nature to rule him; being only under the restraint of the law of nature. In Hobbes state of nature, everybody is against everybody. Locke, however, does not equate war and the state of nature. In Locke’s state of nature, men live amicably with each other.
The state of nature may as well comprise the use of currency, wage labor, a market economy, as well as extensive estates. The contract holds amongst the people. However, the government according to Locke is not very much absolutist as that of Thomas Hobbes. The government, according to John Locke, serves as a form of trustee that guards the interests of the citizens. Locke also points out that the citizens retain autonomy and not the governing entities. In addition, the citizens are not subjects of any monarch, like for Thomas Hobbes; in contrast, the government is the people’s servant. Furthermore, in case the individuals in power behave poorly, the citizens may assert their autonomy and power simply by changing the government for instance deposing a king. In Lockean state of nature, citizens can make contracts and promises with each other, perform various duties and transfer rights, devoid of leaving the state of nature. Even so, just one very special and specific agreement will take people out of the state of nature; an agreement to bring a common judge between individuals.
Locke stated that everybody is in fact born into the state of nature, and, with the exception of a general community of man, everyone remains in the state of nature regarding at least some others. Persons who are incapable of consent – that is, voluntary agreement – as well as those persons who decide not to consent remain in the state of nature. The people whose communities are broken up, for instance by being invaded and conquered by others, and those ill-treated by otherwise legitimate governments are brought back to the state of nature. The definition by Locke inclines towards the moral characterization and uses distinctively moral notions such as voluntary agreement and legitimacy. There is no clear social characterization that emerges from this Lockean definition. Lockean state of nature is essentially a notion that has strong moral content. On the contrary, Hobbesian definition of state of nature is obviously inclined towards the social characterization: for Hobbes, the state of nature was defined largely by the brute fact of lack of physical security; there is a clear social characterization – of life devoid of security. The ethical aspect of interpersonal life, for Thomas Hobbes, rests on and follows from the social aspect.
In essence, Locke maintained that people are completely free and capable of totally autonomous action. His notions of religious tolerance, limited government, as well as individual rights contributed to the American Revolution. He reasoned that these totally autonomous citizens would transfer a few of their rights conditionally to the regime. This will then insure the comfortable, as well as stable enjoyment of their property, autonomy, and lives. According to Locke, relinquishing some right to the government will ensure that people are able to live harmoniously with one another for the common betterment of their lives.
The Bible has referenced severally the motif of every person with his own vineyard – the notion of liberty and autonomy, and private property that Locke described. In 2 Kings Chapter 18 verse 32, the King of Assyria utilized this euphemism when came against the people of Jerusalem. He said: “come out and then make peace with me. Every one of you will then eat fruits from your own fig trees and vineyards.” This scripture expresses the notion that if people just relented, they would have a high level of autonomy and that would enjoy the fruits of their work. Moreover, Amos 9:14 states that Israelites are promised that when they go back to Israel from exile, they would plant gardens and vineyards and reconstruct cities. They however disobeyed. Zephaniah 1:13 says that: “although they p...